


The Important Thing is You're Back. With me.

by MoragMacPherson



Series: Go Make Some New Disaster [2]
Category: Portal (Video Game), Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/F, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon, Supernatural AU: Croatoan/End'verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-07
Updated: 2012-04-07
Packaged: 2017-11-03 04:59:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/377541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoragMacPherson/pseuds/MoragMacPherson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meeting people is supposed to be easy; hopefully it's at least more pleasant than meeting another AI.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Important Thing is You're Back. With me.

“So what’s in the box?” Dean asks, running his fingers over it and then rubbing his fingers together to try to get the soot off. You’re a little surprised that you feel possessive when he does this, like you want to step forward and swipe his hand away. But both he and Risa and the two other people — _so many_ other people already and the promise of more when they ‘get back’ and you’re already feeling a little overwhelmed — they all still have their guns, so you hold yourself back.

“La caja pertenece a mí. No lo toque,” you say instead, and maybe you do speak Spanish. Wheatley hadn’t— hadn’t known that he was using the facility incorrectly and should have consulted the manual.

_You_ should have laughed then, but you never laughed while you were tested.

Risa laughs now and it makes both you and Dean startle. “Está bien, pobrecita,” she tells you. “Él es un idiota, pero no va a romper nada. Te lo prometo.” To Dean she says, “She says she doesn’t want you to mess with her stuff.” Which, yeah, is pretty much what you meant.

Dean scowls at both of you. “I thought you spoke English,” he says, circling the box suspiciously. Spanish belonged to your father. GLaDOS had always spoken to you in English and usually Wheatley as well, so it’s almost like that language belongs to them. You shake your head. English doesn’t belong to the machines, it belongs to these people, and to your mother. Dad had been there, that day, with the neurotoxin. But Mom hadn’t. She’d been with her other family. _Mom might still be alive_.

“I do,” you say. “I speak English. It’s just been a very long time.”

Dean cocks an eyebrow, and you know how to read faces, you remember. “How long?” he asks, gruff, but gentler than any other thing he’s said so far.

There’s that urge to cry again; you almost want to blame the people for it. You hadn’t ever cried while you were being tested, hadn’t even really wanted to, but now, with all of these people, with all of their _expressions_ and the inflections in their voices… “I don’t know,” you admit. A thought occurs to you. “What year is it?”

Now Risa’s the one giving you a suspicious look and Dean’s the one whose gaze softens. “July the seventh in the Year of our Lord, 2014.” His voice is still bitter. “What year were you expecting, Chell?”

You take this in. You’d had the impression of so much more time passing. But then, how much time had you spent in hibernation? GLaDOS had spoken of back up and clones — _is this even your original body_? Hadn’t Cave Johnson warned the test subjects that some of those tests might lead to a little time travel? It’s all very confusing and you have all of these strange emotions warring inside of you — the strongest of them is hope. If it’s 2014, then there’s a much better chance that Mom’s still alive. The more you think about her— the more you look at Risa and remember how humans move and act and talk— the better you can remember your Mother. “I wasn’t sure. Where I was… it was underground. I couldn’t count the days.”

Risa lays a hand on your left arm — none of them have been foolish enough to try to take your portal device away from you. “When did you go underground, Chell?”

You clear your throat, trying to work through memories you haven’t thought about in forever, it seems like. It had been Bring Your Daughter to Work Day. You’d been excited. You’d been fifteen. It had been… “1997. That’s when I went… that’s when I was trapped. I think.”

Risa’s face falls, and she pushes a few stray tendrils of hair out of your face. “Pobrecita,” she breathes, and she really means it this time. You let her wrap an arm around you, let her pull you against her. “Dean,” you hear her warn. “She hasn’t seen sunlight since she was maybe four years old. Give her a little space, okay?”

You push off, away from Risa, shaking your head and wiping the tears from your eyes. “No, no! Celebramos mi fiesta de Quinceañera, un mes antes de ir al laboratorio. Yo tenía quince años en 1997!” You can remember your gown, remember the lace and the flowers and the way that your mother and father, for once, hadn’t fought.

You can remember the pretty little blonde girl with sad brown eyes, swirling her around on the dance floor. “Sé que tu pierda su papá. Sé que duele. Pero tu todavía tiene familia. Tu puede venir a reside con nosotros. Te va a gustar a mi padre, yo lo sé. Tu debe preguntar a mamá.” But your mother’s blonde daughter hadn’t understood, so you’d had to say it again. “You still have family. You have me. I know he’s not your Papa, but you would like my father. Maybe this summer you could ask Mama if you could come stay with us.”

You can remember her wild blonde hair and brown eyes too big for her face and skinny legs with bruised knees, the main feature that marked you as sisters. But you cannot remember the little girl’s name.

Risa is shaking her head. “That would make you thirty-two years old, pobrecita. Good genes are one thing, but there’s just no way. If we still had them, I wouldn’t let you into a bar.”

Dean grunted. “Well, this has been strange, and great and all, but we’re burning daylight, girls. Why don’t you two wait until we get to camp to start giving eachother mani-pedis?” he says, stomping back over to the truck. But he stops and turns before he gets there. “Risa, on your ten!”

You turn to look and there are more of those things-that-aren’t-people, a pack of them running straight towards you, a few hundred yards away. You look around for a moment and past the monsters, there’s a sheer rock cliff face, probably two hundred feet off the ground. The monsters are running on pavement. Risa and the others are firing their guns at the monsters, but it doesn’t appear to be doing much good. Better for you to shoot one portal out, onto the top of the cliff face, then lean past Risa to shoot the other portal into the road between them.

The monsters drop through the portal and, off in the distance, you see them tumble off the cliff. Speedy things go in, speedy things go out. And go splat. You discharge the portals on a pair of trees — it’s not safe, just leaving those around, and then look back at the people.

Their eyes are much wider now. You smile at them. When was the last time you smiled? GLaDOS had admitted that you were good, but somehow, the awe of your fellow humans is even more satisfying. You keep the gun pointed at the air and point at it with your other hand. “It’s an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device.” You suppress the urge to giggle — and that’s a desire you haven’t felt in a very long time. “It comes in handy,” you add, because the humans are still looking at you like you might not really be one of them anymore, and that’s… uncomfortable.

Dean’s the first to recover. He chuffs out a laugh, shaking his head. “Yeah, I can see how it would.”

Risa’s eyes are still enormous and round. “Wait until Cas gets a load of that thing,” she whispers.

Dean rolls his eyes. “Maybe that will get him out of his funk.” Then Dean looks at you. “All right, Chell, if you’re willing to bring your portal-shooter along with you, I guess we’ll find room for your little box-thingy on the truck. Daryl, Stan, help me rig this thing on,” he calls back to the other two men. “Ladies, feel free to fight it out over shotgun. I won’t even ask if I can watch,” he says before pulling a length of rope out of the truck bed and walking towards your companion cube.

“What does he mean?” you ask.

Risa snorts. “You really don’t want to know.” She steps away from you again, looks you up and down, and you feel uncomfortable. Self-conscious. Evaluated. Tested. For once, you want success at a test to mean more than just surviving, even though you’re not quite sure what that means. But when she looks back at your face she’s smiling again. “I think we can probably share the seat pretty comfortably, belleza. Come on,” she says, hopping onto the seat and rubbing the remaining half with her hand, inviting you to join her.

You still feel your cheeks burning from the endearment. But you like Risa calling you that better than pobrecita. And the idea of being pressed up against her for the ride back to camp… well, it could be fun. You wind up riding half in her lap, letting the portal device rest the the ledge of the open window. Dean smirks when he and the others get back in the car; you’re not sure why. But he turns the keys and the loud noise resumes, and you’re off on your first car ride in seventeen years.

It’s an adventure.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations (as requested) NB: I took Spanish in high school and spend much of my time in a household where a combination of Cartegenan, Central Mexican, Tejano, and Dominican dialects are spoken (by other people. I listen). The grammar errors are all mine; the endearments are all stolen from various family members.
> 
> “La caja pertenece a mí. No lo toque.” - The box belongs to me. Don’t touch it.
> 
> “Está bien, pobrecita. Él es un idiota, pero no va a romper nada. Te lo prometo.” - It’s okay, you poor little thing. He’s a moron, but he won’t break anything. I promise. (Pobrecita is really difficult to translate. “dear child” or “my precious one” might actually a more idiomatic choice)
> 
> “No, no! Celebramos mi fiesta de Quinceañera, un mes antes de ir al laboratorio. Yo tenía quince años en 1997!” - No, no! We held my Quinceañera, a whole month before we went to the lab. I was fifteen in 1997! (Quinceañera is pretty much the Mexican (and I guess some other Latino cultures) equivalent of a Sweet Sixteen party, but when they turn fifteen instead. It’s kind of a big deal. 
> 
> “Sé que tu pierda su papá. Sé que duele. Pero tu todavía tiene familia. Tu puede venir a reside con nosotros. Te va a gustar a mi padre, yo lo sé. Tu debe preguntar a mamá.” - I know you miss your papa. I know it hurts. But you still have family. You could come and live with us. You’d like my father, I know you would. You should ask mama.
> 
> “belleza” - Gorgeous, as in, “I think we can probably share the seat pretty comfortably, Gorgeous.”


End file.
